As the size of agricultural implements continues to grow, the versatility of such implements becomes more significant. Large air seeders have become increasingly popular for the planting of seeds, fertilizer, and other product without strict regard for the exact placement of the seeds particles. For crop planting operations that require seed singulation, nurse systems are used to feed seed or other particles from larger hoppers into smaller reservoirs located at the singulation meters. A nurse inductor system enables an air cart typically used for dryland farming (cereal crops, etc.), to be adapted for use in row crop planting applications, such as corn and soybean, though not limited to soybean and corn. A nurse inductor system along with a central fill hopper can be used to enable a farmer to plant more acres before having to stop to fill the planter, resulting in quicker planting and less labor, while maintaining the precision spacing available by on-row singulation.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,161,473, a nurse system is disclosed which works off a specialized cart. The air comes into the seed delivery area coaxial with the seed tube that takes the air and seed to the row units. With this system substantial energy is used to nurse the seed since the air changes direction abruptly. This particular nurse system provides a dedicated fan to feed the 12 rows to be planted from the nurse system. This system requires the adding or removing of shims to adjust for different line lengths, which is difficult and inconvenient to accomplish. The seed cart includes two tanks and has a number of primary nurse lines running to each row unit hopper, commonly referred to as parallel distribution. Half of the lines run from one tank while the other half of the planting mechanism is nursed from the second tank. While different seeds can be put in the two tanks, the planter is not capable of switching back and forth between seed varieties to service the entire machine.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,047,652, the planter has a hopper mounted on each wing of a front folding tool bar supporting the planting mechanism. This nurse distribution system is a series system with one line running from each hopper and each line serving half of the planting mechanism. Like the nurse system described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,161,473, the two tanks could theoretically carry different seed varieties, but neither tank could deliver alternate seed varieties to the entire machine.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,193,175 teaches a switching mechanism that allows two different hoppers to supply a single central singulation drum. Seed is singulated at the central hopper and is blown to the seed row. While this patent does not teach a nurse distribution system, the teaching does provide for carrying two different seed varieties on the planter and for switching between the seed varieties. The utilization of a central singulation meter does not provide the capability of producing seed spacing within the row as accurately as individual “on-row” singulation meters. Accordingly, this patent also fails to teach a nurse distribution system that can feed individual on-row planting mechanisms.
Air seeders are commonly set-up with double or triple shoot air systems. With a double shoot system, the product from one tank is delivered to the opener, and the product from a second tank is delivered to a second part of the same opener. Most air carts have a simple method of switching from a double shoot configuration to a single shoot configuration.
Another example of a nurse system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,161,102 to Kongskilde. This nurse system distributes grain from a central hopper to a number of smaller hoppers. A metering device on each small hopper delivers to a number of seed boots. In this particular system, the operator is able to shut off one of the meter rollers independent of the other meter rollers, and is therefore able to stop the rotation of one section on the roller independent of the others. However, this system does not permit the operator to shut off the delivery to any of the nurse lines independently. U.S. Pat. No. 4,060,181 teaches another nurse embodiment with varying problems.
It is known to be desirable to plant different varieties of the same crop in different soil zones such that the seed variety is matched to the soil conditions for optimal growth opportunities. Coupling the nurse technology to permit the utilization of air seeders to feed row crop planters having a singulator with the desire to plant specific seed varieties in different soil zones of the same field has been a difficult task. Current nursing technology has only focused on the delivery of one type of seed from a central tank to a receiver located above the seed singulator on the row unit, commonly referred to as single shoot. Some systems have a single tank delivering to all receivers; others can have two tanks mounted on the planter, each tank delivering to half of the machine. With the two-tank system it is possible to carry a different variety of seed in each tank, however each tank only serves half of the machine. With these systems it is not possible to have the entire machine plant one variety from the one tank and easily change over to plant a second variety from the second tank.
It is therefore desirable to provide a nurse inductor system that couples the nurse distribution technology to permit the utilization of air seeders to feed row crop planters having a singulator with the desire to plant specific seed varieties in different soil zones of the same field.